Yesterday, I reviewed the finale of the freshman season of The Americans, and though I noted my appreciation for the outstanding acting, as well as the complicated relationship drama, I did express some disappointment with the open-ended nature of the finale. But the more I’ve read about the showrunners (Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields) intentions for the season — to kind of subvert the contemporary dramatic formula and eschew cliffhangers and twists — the more I’ve come to appreciate this season of The Americans for what it is: A show about a marriage between two spies set in 1981, instead of a show about espionage between married spies set in 1981. The story that Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields want to tell is one about a relationship trying to overcome very high-stakes obstacles, and but the high-stakes obstacles are secondary to the marriage.

Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields made the rounds yesterday, talking with several Internet out fits about this season’s finale, about Margo Martindale’s inclusion going ahead, and about their plans for season two. I’ve rounded up the best bits of four interviews, and spliced them together to succinctly answer our most pressing questions.

1. On how much of the season was planned out ahead of time (via Huffpo):

We did have so much planned out at the beginning and so many places we wanted to go. And a bunch of those places stayed, a bunch of them got modified and a bunch went away completely. And yet even the things that we set out to do that we did exactly, there’s still so much improvisation to get there. There’s no straight line, in any event. You’re zigging and you’re zagging and you’re moving the pieces and you’re doing it all out of breath, on the fly.

2. On whether it ended the way they’d planned for it to end (via Salon):

A lot of things about where Phil and Elizabeth’s story ended changed, whereas Stan and Nina ended up in a place very close to where we thought they would.

With Nina and Martha, we really knew where we were going. Although the way those stories played out was slightly different, they ended up as we originally broke them. Joe and I have really enjoyed reading the reviews, the critiques, the blogs, the emails and the Twitter feed during the episodes, and part of the fun has been watching everybody wait breathlessly for Nina or Martha to get it. We hadn’t really planned on making the audience expect that to happen. We didn’t think of that. There’s a certain fun in people expecting it to go differently.

4. On whether Margo Martindale returns, given her pilot with CBS (via Hitflix and HuffPo)

It’s disturbing to think that Leslie Moonves may be in charge of the KGB in 1981. Boy, we love Margo. She’s so talented, and she’s so wonderful in that role. Sooner or later, we think Claudia should be in the show.

We’re secretly working to destroy that show … in conjunction with the KGB.

5. On going forward with a smaller ensemble cast, especially after the deaths of two minor characters this season (via Hitfix):

You want to be able to tell very emotional, meaningful, dramatic stories right out of the gate. I think, though, that we have to expand the world at the same time, both to fill in the holes that those characters left and to make the world a little broader and bigger as we go forward, just so it isn’t too small.

With anything like that, we consider 10 possibilities … And with that, it was everything from, “There’s no such scene,” to, “She finds their guns and wigs.” And eight things in between were discussed. And we hope we found just the right thing. We found, for us, what we felt was the right thing … It came down to even editing that scene different ways, to where she’s looking at the panel [behind the washing machine], or she was just looking vaguely in that direction or…

8. On whether Phillip and Elizabeth’s marriage will continue to fall apart and come back together in season two (via Huffpo):

Yeah, I think you can’t keep doing that … [but] It’s hard to imagine The Americans without the marriage being the center of it.

9. On how long before Stan figures out that the Jennings are Russian spies (via Huffpo):

I noticed this last week that one of our regular reviewers wrote that there’s only so [long that Stan can’t notice what the Jennings are up to]. Stan becomes stupid after a while if he’s not onto them. And I sort of half agree with that but half disagree. We have control over doling out what we dole out to Stan before he becomes stupid, and we can dole it out at whatever pace we want.

We always kept returning to the characters and themes we wanted to explore. And we felt like we didn’t want to be drawn into a series of breathless cliffhanger escalation, episode after episode, that we had to keep topping. We wanted to do something that, as crazy as this world is, felt grounded for the characters. And particularly in the finale we wanted to do that.

This season we did write a whole episodic story that explored that part of Stan’s past. Then we decided that it wasn’t right to do it in the first season. We got through that process learning a lot about what we believe is that backstory and what drives him. I’m sure we’ll get to it.

I’ll tell you this RDR, I watched the first episode and hated the s**t out of this show. Just couldn’t stand it. Cut to next week and I decided to give it another shot. It’s now one of my favorite shows on air.

A good show to compare it to is Boardwalk Empire – it’s a show driven 100% by character choice and character development. The plots are basically used to emphasize where characters are in their lives (ie marriage). So it’s not like Justified where it’s just one thing after another, whimsical and light-hearted, or GoT where it’s a complete fantasy world and you’re just wondering how the envelope can be pushed forward.

It’s about marriage in exceptional circumstances. I say watch the first 3 episodes and if you don’t dig it, you never will.

The show is well written and very well acted. I don’t know how old you are, but I was growing up in metro-DC in 1981 and the show gets the “feel” right. Ultimately, you’ll like it or you won’t but I doubt you’ll think it’s shitty like an NBC drama.

I do love the show.. but one thing that kind of drives me nuts with it is the whole secretive nature of the conversations being so inconsistent. They won’t even speak in their native tongue at any given point, even when alone in their house or vehicles, because of the ultimate secrecy given their location.. But at the same time their “secret” conversations occur often in public places, constantly being interrupted by waitresses or people walking by.. that could EASILY overhear them.

I remember my mom told me this thing once that speaking softly is infinitely more secretive than, say, whispering. One equates to a mumble that most people drone out or dismiss if they have no reason to pay attention, while the other pretty much telegraphs you’re talking about something weird to observers.

And yes, we are immigrants and my mom grew up in Soviet Russia. No, we are not spies.

I wouldn’t mind Stan not instantly figuring out that his neighbors were the spy couple if he hadn’t broken into their garage in the pilot because he was suspicious that they were the spy couple. He’s either suspicious or he isn’t. Can’t be both.

Well, why can’t it be both? He was suspicious early on, but his suspicions were laid to rest (at least temporarily) and now he’s gaining new information that lead him back to his original suspicions. It doesn’t sound far fetched to me, it seems almost normal to be quite honest.

Plus, would you be able to suspect your neighbors and apparently ONLY friends in the world if they’ve given you no reason to do so?

He can absolutely be both, suspicious and not. He broke into their garage, found nothing, and then thought “Man, that was stupid. What are the chances that I just happened to move in across the street from Russian moles who just happend to be the people I’m specifically looking for right now? Damn, Elizabeth looks good in those Jordache jeans. She is a stone cold fox. I would love to get some of that leg. (and other assorted 80’s sayings)”

When Stan moved to the neighborhood, he was fresh out of his undercover assignment so his suspicion radar was on full alert. I think in that scene in the pilot he realizes that’s he’s being ridiculous. I mean what are the odds that two Soviet illegals live right across the street?

“We hadn’t really planned on making the audience expect that to happen. We didn’t think of that. There’s a certain fun in people expecting it to go differently.”

Bravo. While I thought the murder episode was predictable and unnecessary, they righted the ship with the last few episodes. Anytime you can honestly subvert expectations in a finale and have it serve the story, you’re doing great work.

Next season:
Martha gets either turned or killed after she follows Phillip home by Phillip, Elizabeth or whoever the new handler may be.
Stan gets divorced fairly early on in the season and the Jennings are relieved.
Nina remains crazy hot and half naked.

Nina is my favorite character in the show. There’s a lot of layers to her and I like it. Plus she’s super hot. The fact that she’s filming a tv movie with Spader, makes me love actress her too. Spader does no wrong.

My only problem with the show are the constant high risk Ethan Hunt style missions. Moles and assassins do two very different things. It’s like Philip and Elizabeth are the only two Soviet field agents in Washington D.C.

And see, the one part of the show I wish they would stop emphasizing is the marraige part. To be truthful, I was kind of hoping this would be “other side of the Atlantic” part of Nelson Demille’s “Charm School” (great Cold War era book.)

IT’S THE FIRST SEASON YOU FUCK!! They had to keep it open because if you don’t know how long you have to tell a story you tend to keep things open. There’s no need to go Sutter and burn off plot lines left and right…lets get a nice sloooooow burn.